AN ANALYTICAL MODEL TO EVALUATE ALTERNATIVEMETHODS FOR DISTANCE CALCULATION IN GIS-BASEDVEHICLE ROUTING DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

摘要

Most commercial vehicle-routing decision support systems employ network optimization methods forrncalculating inter-stop distances over digital street data. Although potentially more accurate, these optimizationrnmethods are computationally intensive, increase overall problem complexity and require more sophisticatedrnand expensive GIS systems to support the functions. Alternative approaches for calculating inter-stop streetrndistances have been re-emerging in the literature as software developers seek to increase efficiency whenrnsolving these types of complex problems allowing larger problems to be solved in real-time. This research inrnprogress describes an analytical model to determine if approximation methods are comparable, in terms of thernquality of solutions generated, to computationally expensive optimization methods which have been generallyrnadopted by software vendors.